72 Hours, 30 Volunteers, 3 Nonprofits = Success!

A few months ago, Ab Emam at the Web Development Group in Washington, DC came to me with a great idea called CreateathonDC: they would select three DC-area nonprofits and, over the course of one weekend, would completely overhaul their web presences using WordPress as the backbone CMS. I loved the concept and WordPress.com VIP was proud to sponsor the event. The idea got a great response – more than 40 nonprofits applied. Three were selected, and this past weekend, Ab’s team, along with 30 volunteers, hunkered down for a 72-hour design marathon. The fruits of their labor and talents are simply awesome. Below is the post that Web Development Group just put up recapping their work this past weekend. Be sure to check out the site makeovers – they are beautiful!

CreateathonDC 2012 was a huge success! Our three teams worked late into the night finalizing the development aspects of the websites. The Web Development Group is excited to announce each of the nonprofits’ websites were successfully launched, much to the excitement of CreateathonDC volunteers, sponsors and the nonprofits themselves!

Starting Friday evening and chugging along through the early hours of Monday morning, WDG and Createathon’s volunteers dedicated both their superb talents and time to create and smoothly implement these WordPress-powered websites, from start (think initial client consultations and wireframes) to finish, successfully launching better web experiences for the three nonprofits.

If you missed the updates over the weekend, here’s a quick run down of how CreateathonDC Weekend went!

The Web Development Group team spent this summer scouring applications for both volunteers and nonprofits. While considering the organizations who applied to be selected for a website makeover, we focused on their financial needs (based on 990), the state of their current site, as well as the opportunities the new WordPress-powered web experience would give the nonprofits in their efforts to further spread their message and engage the community. With nearly 40 organizations applying, the competition was tough. The chosen organizations for this year’s CreateathonDC event were: Borromeo Housing, DC Diaper Bank, and Phoenix Bikes.

On the volunteers side, we had over 70 volunteers who applied to be a part of this spectacular inaugural event. The 30 individuals chosen came from a wide spectrum of talents and backgrounds within the DC-Metro creative community. The volunteers were broken down into three teams of 10 people strong and were led by WDG’s own senior developers. The teams quickly identified the strengths of each member and distributed tasks appropriately to successfully strategize, design, develop, and launch three amazingly user-friendly responsive websites within 72 hours.

With dedicated time, talents and effort, we were able to give Phoenix Bikes, DC Diaper Bank, and Borromeo Housing a complete web experience makeover, including services like, consultation, web and graphic design, development, content management, social media strategy, and WordPress content management training!

Check out some of the before and after shots of the sites!

PHOENIX BIKES:

The new site incorporates the colors of the logo better, is much less text heavy, and is much more user-friendly. When WDG first started looking at Phoenix Bikes’ site, many of the links were broken, the calendar did not work well, and the whole site was rarely updated. Now that it is on WordPress, updating will be much easier, there is a Facebook feed which will keep it dynamic and changing, and the site itself is also responsive!

BORROMEO HOUSING:

Borromeo Housing really wanted to help spread their message to the general population while also adding color, and video to their site. Our designers and developers worked with the nonprofit representatives and even offered them 15 custom-edited videos that can be used for future posts. The slideshow on the homepage helps push out their message, and the donate button is much more prominent. The navigation on the site is much more intuitive .

DC DIAPER BANK:

DC Diaper Bank wanted a site that was fun, creative, and also kept the user on the pages longer. This is something The Web Development Group knew they could capitalize on. The awesome design team added infographics, images, and saturated colors. The site gets the message out without being too “baby-focused”, something the nonprofit wanted. This site is also responsive. The organization also received a toolkit (custom-designed hand-out that promotes the organization and can be edited for different functions) and Facebook/Twitter branding!

This event was a huge success and will most definitely become and annual event. We are eager to continue to give back to the local community again in the future. As Darlene Bakke from Borromeo Housing said, “The website is amazing and I know this transformation will make a huge impact on BHI messaging.”

Categories

Archives

Ready to get started?

Tell us about your needs

Let us lead the way. We’ll help you select a top tier development partner. We’ll train your developers, operations, infrastructure, and editorial teams. We’ll coarchitect your deployment processes. We will provide live support for peak events. We’ll help your people avoid dark alleys and blind corners, and reduce wasted cycles.